


They come to be woken up

by days4daisy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Drug Use, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Post-Canon, dream vs reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 14:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11738961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: “How do you know it’s all real?”





	They come to be woken up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).



> A little treat for you, PhoenixFalls :)

Eames has always been a tempest, disrupting everything he touches. He blows through Yusuf's office every now and then, makes a mess of things, and departs just as quickly.

Their introduction was the strike of a match. Eyes narrowed against a curious smile. “Ah, so _you’re_ Yusuf. Your reputation precedes you, friend.”

They've never been friends. Friends are not a wise choice in their line of work. Yusuf knows the man, though. It’s a scientist’s duty to dissect a whole into manageable parts. He can tell immediately that Eames isn't himself today.

The hair tips Yusuf off. It lacks its usual precision, a few pieces falling down his forehead. Eames is not in his standard suit either. Just a button-down shirt and faded jeans ripping at the knees. His posture is hunched like the top of an ‘f.’

Worst of all, he’s giving attention to the cat.

Yusuf finds Eames in his office coddling Bernard with a succession of strokes. The cat, not minding Eames' peculiar mood, arches his back in appreciation. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Yusuf asks. ‘Pleasure’ is relative when it comes to Eames’ visits. He's amenable to this one though, odd as Eames’ current mood is.

Yusuf has not seen him since The Job, or any of the others. It was best to lay low as the dust settled around young Robert Fischer’s empire. There have been no other jobs for Yusuf of late. Another job would press luck already pushed to its limits.

It would be in character for Eames to jostle Yusuf a bit. The man has a dry wit, biting but enjoyable on slow afternoons like these. He could also cut to the chase. How much of the compound he needs, by when, and enough about its purpose for Yusuf to doctor the correct dosage.

Eames does neither today.

Yusuf notes the red rimming his eyes, and the dark circles under them. “You need sleep,” Yusuf murmurs. Eames cracks a smile, sardonic and too vulnerable. It makes Yusuf uneasy. “Or,” he ventures, “you need less sleep.”

“I need…” Eames pushes away an errant strand of hair. It falls again moments later in clumsy, fetching fashion. “I don’t know what I need,” he admits. “Are you working?”

“I _was_.” Eames shrugs at his jab but offers no witty rejoinder of his own. “You’re not sick, are you?” It wouldn’t be the first time, despite Yusuf’s protests that he’s a bloody scientist, not a pharmacy. 

“Not in the over-the-counter sense,” Eames remarks, arms crossed. “I was hoping for something a bit stronger.”

Yusuf raises a brow. “Strong enough to dream?”

“God, no. The opposite.”

Yusuf hums. “You want to be awake?”

Eames ponders for a moment, his long body reclined against the cabinet ledge. Bernard rubs against his arm, but grows bored and moves on quickly. “I think so, yeah,” he decides. 

Yusuf draws a vial from his shelves, the liquid inside a vibrant blue. A personal favorite. “This may make it a bit difficult to concentrate. Depressed brain function. You’ll be lucid, but thoughts will be like sand through your fingers.” Yusuf realizes he may sound a bit wistful.

Eames smiles again. “You’re a marvelous salesman as always, Yusuf. I won’t need to join your collection of lab rats downstairs, will I?”

Yusuf huffs at the terminology. “We could do it here, but your movements will be impaired.”

“I’d rather not count on you to keep on my feet,” Eames agrees. “How about the spare room upstairs?”

The one with the bed, he means. Eames has experienced it multiple times over the years. Recovering from injury, mostly, or avoiding bounty collectors. And on rare nights, a sudden intrusion, laughter kissed down the back of Yusuf's neck.

Eames blows out a breath, his momentary mirth gone. “How much?”

Yusuf shrugs off the question. “I’ll add it to your tab.”

Eames chuckles, but the levity never reaches his eyes. “I’ll need another Fischer job to pay that off,” he jokes.

Yusuf shakes his head. Neither of them needs another Fischer job.

***

Eames is easy to dismiss when he’s awake. He’s the conniest of conmen, a forger in every sense of the word. The most brilliant liar Yusuf has ever seen, which makes it simple to keep him at arm’s length. Eames makes no apologies for what he is: a world of trouble sealed with a smirk.

He's harder to dismiss when he’s asleep.

Yusuf’s trade is sleep. He studies it. He sells it. He’s built his livelihood on it. Dozens pass through Yusuf’s doors every day, begging for sleep. He’s treated the young and the old, the wealthy and the poor, the unremarkable and the divine.

Yusuf does not think of any of their faces after it’s done. Eames, though, he remembers, and herein lies his problem. Sleep is Eames’ truth. It flutters through unfairly long lashes and softens the gentle creases on his brow. It smooths his face like porcelain and slacks his mouth in a perfect, slender part. 

This half-lucid haze is worse, a drowsy blink of eyes that glow with unnatural fervor. Eames' lips are wet by a thirsty trace of tongue. Warmth blossoms on his cheeks like an onset of fever.

He stares at Yusuf as if he’s not really there. Wondering, maybe, what’s real and what isn’t. Wondering, for once, as Yusuf wonders about him.

Yusuf does not remove himself, nor does he think Eames expects him to. The hand that rises towards him says at much, Eames' fingers dangling like loose threads. They comb Yusuf’s chest, pausing to play with the top button of his shirt. The tips circle, pluck at plastic. Eames sighs, long and luxurious, and Yusuf falls for the act. He eases hair from Eames’ forehead and tucks it behind his ear.

Eames quirks a smile. “It took awhile to stop hating you, you know.” He slurs the words, thick and rich enough to taste.

“What did you hate me for this time?” It’s surely something to do with The Job, something Yusuf should be angrier at him about. 

Eames pinches the top button of Yusuf’s shirt open with the ease of a magic trick, perfectly executed. “You trusted that bastard Cobb more than me.”

“ _You_ trusted him,” Yusuf argues, though his heart isn’t in it. “You introduced us.”

Eames’ head tips back with a low murmur of enjoyment. Irrationally, the reaction annoys Yusuf. He _knows_ better than this. But knowledge has never been able to withstand Eames at his door.

“I never said I trusted him,” Eames reasons.

“You never said you _didn’t_ trust him.”

Hands fumble through the rest of Yusuf's shirt buttons. A breath of the room’s humid air stirs interest in his gut.

“You’re saying I misled you.” Eames considers the idea. “Should I apologize?”

Yusuf snorts. “You shouldn’t say anything. You’re better silent.”

Finally, a grin that looks more like Eames, teeth to go along with the exaggerated curve of his mouth. “You’re a sweetheart, you know.” He stretches, and trips over his own shirt’s buttons. “It’s hot.”

“It’s Mombasa,” Yusuf mutters. He’s looking too closely at smoothness of Eames’ skin. Clean shaved chest, the flashy bastard, toned like he’s been touristing on the coast. Probably has, with company just as suited to lazy wealth under the sun.

Eames shrugs out of his shirt, frowning because coordinating his own limbs is now a struggle. His right shoulder bears a sleeve like the stained glass of a church. Atop the menagerie sits a black raven, its head twisted, one sharp eye menacing.

 _‘The messenger,’_ Eames offered when Yusuf asked him about the design. Yusuf still isn't sure what it means.

Eames has returned to pawing at his chest, drowsy motions with no intention behind them. Yusuf eases his hand away. Eames' fingers twitch inside his grasp. “If you wanted this, you should have done it while you were yourself.”

“Join me then,” Eames coaxes. “Your work’s done for the day. The night is young.”

“My work was just fine before you showed up. And I’m still mad at you.”

Eames makes a short sound of offense. “I thought I was mad at you.” He considers, a swim of dazed eyes dismissed with a shrug. “Or I wasn’t, who knows. Join me, Yusuf.”

Yusuf sighs and props himself by Eames' side. Eames' ribs are like low tide under Yusuf's fingers. Yusuf counts three bruises and two fresh scars on his torso. A small one on his stomach, a nick from a pocket knife. The other, a dull ‘c’ drawn down his side, must have caused more concern. It’s in a place that likely bled quite a bit. The scar is still pebbled in a dull red line.

“What are you doing here?” Yusuf asks.

He gets a chuckle and a thumb scratched through his beard. “How do you know it’s all real?” Eames murmurs.

Yusuf frowns. “What?”

“How do you…” Eames sighs, the words dissolving into pensiveness. His eyes shift between Yusuf and the back wall of the room, like something is lurking there that only he can see. “We’ve got the totems, I suppose. But do you ever wonder?”

He’s smiling, but Yusuf isn’t. “No," Yusuf says. "This is real.”

“Of course it is,” Eames agrees, chuckling a bit. His hands flex in the air like they're submersed in water. 

Yusuf has heard jokes of this type before. They were never funny. And they certainly aren't now. “This is real,” Yusuf repeats. He gives Eames a shake, hands to his face. Eames' stubble is just long enough to itch under Yusuf’s palms.

“You know.” Eames doesn’t open his eyes. “I never dreamed much before The Job. It’s been different since then. That’s how it starts, isn’t it?”

Yusuf hesitates. He won't say Cobb's name, and he won't name that place. “What do you dream about?” he asks instead.

“What’s left to dream when dreams have taken you everywhere, you know?” Eames’ eyes slide up to meet Yusuf’s, not fully focused. “I’ve been here.”

“Have you?”

“Mmm. Too many times. But I could never quite…” His hand splays across Yusuf’s stomach and travels up through dark curls. “My god, you in dreams, Yusuf.”

Yusuf raises a bemused brow. “Devilishly handsome?”

“Dull as a goddamned brick,” Eames mutters. “Pleasant enough, but I’ve never quite gotten your...you down.” He waves a hand in Yusuf’s general direction. It flops back to his stomach a moment later. “Forgery only works in the field, I suppose.”

“Or you need to study harder,” Yusuf suggests.

By Eames’ smirk, he is lucid enough to pick up on the insinuation. “As tempting as that is, I’ve come to prefer the real thing.”

“Ah." Yusuf allows himself to relax. "That one is a looker, isn’t he?”

“Hm, quite.” Eames turns towards the hand stroking his hair, lips and tongue greeting Yusuf's wrist. “I think I’ve missed you,” he says.

“I think you’re high as a kite.” Still, Yusuf can allow himself one kiss.

Eames’ mouth is drug-lazy and more than happy to comply. He combs fingers into Yusuf’s hair. Their breaths mingle hot between them. Eames’ movements are slow and calm. He gazes out through a fence of lashes.

“This is real,” Yusuf tells him.

Eames’ hummed acknowledgment is more convincing this time. “You know what would really drive it home?”

“If you say ‘a good shag’-”

“I would’ve made it sound nicer than that.”

Yusuf rolls his eyes and rubs a thumb across Eames’ lips. He tries to ignore the warmth in his gut at the little kiss pressed to his finger. “You’re not as persuasive as you think you are, my friend.”

“Oh, I’m incredibly persuasive. And charming. And-”

“If you stay until tomorrow, maybe.”

Eames cocks his head, considering with eyes closed and mouth quirked. “Tomorrow..." The word is bittersweet. "I may sleep on it, if that’s all right.”

Yusuf huffs at the pun. “You’re an ass."

“Mmm,” Eames agrees. He laces his fingers with Yusuf’s. It seems he’s already made up his mind, if a mind is really anyone's own to make up.

*The End*


End file.
